The Sesame Street icon who sang of neighbors

Generations of young children were on a first-name basis with Bob McGrath. A founding cast member on Sesame Street, McGrath spent five decades as affable, sweater-clad music teacher Bob, who sang “People in Your Neighborhood” and acted as a cheerful foil to Oscar the Grouch. It seemed to be the role McGrath was born to play, but in 1969, when a former University of Michigan fraternity brother alerted him to the casting opportunity, he was skeptical. “I thought, ‘Hmm, here’s another silly kiddies’ show,’” recalled McGrath, a tenor who had become an unlikely teen pop idol in Japan. Seeing tapes of Jim Henson’s work changed his mind. “I thought, to heck with that teenage thing,” he said. “This is what I want to do.”

McGrath “started his life on a small farm with no electricity” outside Ottawa, Ill., said the Newark, N.J. Star-Ledger. A singer since age 5, he majored in music and toured Europe with the Seventh Army Symphony during the Korean War. In 1961, he was cast on Sing Along with Mitch, a squeaky-clean TV show that invited viewers to sing along to folk songs and pop standards.

McGrath “performed regularly in Japan” in the mid-1960s, said Variety. Japanese teenagers, who had been learning English by following the show’s onscreen lyrics, flocked to his concerts. But Sesame Street, “a pop cultural force from its debut” on PBS, would more enduringly define his public image. McGrath appeared in more than 460 episodes, including “several of the show’s most iconic sequences,” such as the 1983 show where Big Bird learns about the death of grocer Mr. Hooper.

“Viewers were outraged” when HBO took over the broadcasting rights in 2016 and fired three longtime cast members, including McGrath, said The New York Times. He “took the news graciously,” saying he was glad to have spent 47 years “working with phenomenal people” and was ready for more time with his family. Some Sesame Street viewers already felt that close to him. In a 2004 interview, he recalled meeting a boy who immediately took his hand. “Do you know my name?” McGrath asked. “Bob,” the child said. “Do you know any of my other friends on Sesame Street?” McGrath continued. Without hesitating, the boy said, “Oh, the number 7.”